hosting location and seo

jbob · 02-21-2008, 05:11 AM

I have a .co.uk site that only targets a UK audience. However I am hosted in Germany. Do you think it is worth the hassle of changing to a UK host for SEO purposes?

Any thoughts appreciated..

DennisBerc · 02-21-2008, 05:43 AM

I think that web hosting location does not influence on the SEO. But web hosting uptime DOES. And this very important issue.

damien_ls · 02-21-2008, 09:23 AM

If your site is using a .uk domain then it should be listed in the localised listings (e.g. Google UK) already and therefore it's unlikely that IP "location" would have any further bearing in that respect.

However, changing to a UK host may provide faster page response times for your UK visitors... but latency to Germany shouldn't be so bad, so the impact of this might not be worth your trouble. Assuming that it would help your site load better, it would provide a better user experience and therefore you can expect to receive more traffic / relevant inbound links.

The additional inbound links almost certainly would help you in terms of SEO.

With regards to uptime, I'm not convinced that this has an impact on SEO from the search engines point of view - if the site is unavailable when they wish to spider they'll be back another time.

However, if your site is down then obviously people won't be able to look at it, and are unlikely to provide links to it etc. and this would negatively affect SEO.

iHubNet-Matt · 02-21-2008, 09:41 AM

Yes, if your customers are located in UK, it is always good to rent a server from UK. That will give you a better latency.
It is always good to keep the server near.

jbob · 02-21-2008, 09:49 AM

Thanks for the input. I think i will stay where i am for now - it would be quite a hassle moving host!

john8 · 02-22-2008, 12:46 AM

The location of the host doesn't matter, but your site content does.

So, try your best to make your site itself is SEOed.

damien_ls · 02-22-2008, 02:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by john8

The location of the host doesn't matter, but your site content does.

To clarify this point, I'd say that it doesn't matter in this case but if you're using a gTLD like .com etc. then IP location is probably the only way that search engines will include you in any localised listings and therefore their selection will be entirely based on "the location of the host".

That's why it's a good idea to use a ccTLD relevant to the market you're target audience are in.

However, as I stated above, content is still king when it comes to SEO and is your #1 friend (directly or otherwise) to getting a high ranked listing.

Hahh · 02-22-2008, 03:32 AM

Are you using a Cpanel host? If so, a new provider will easily move you for free.